UAE Helping Hands: Driver’s jaywalking tragedy

Despite not speeding, Amin Sharifi could not avoid hitting an Indian pedestrian who was jaywalking. He is unable to get a job unless he pays a sum of blood money. Reem Mohammed / The National

In a split second on a Friday afternoon on November 6 last year, two men’s lives changed forever.

For 24-year-old Amin Sharifi, life took a turn for the worse and another man’s life ended.

“I was at home with my family [in Sharjah] and I decided to drive to meet my friends in Dubai,” he says.

“I was driving down from a bridge and I could see that the traffic light was green.”

The Iranian, who was born and raised in Dubai, was not speeding and a traffic radar before the traffic light had proof of that, he said.

“When I got down from the bridge, I was looking at the traffic light ahead of me and then I noticed that a man was crossing the road,” he says.

Mr Sharifi tried to avoid the pedestrian by swerving to the left. Sadly, the man was hit by the side of his car. “He toppled on top of the car and his head hit the top metal part of the front of the window,” he says.

The pedestrian, an Indian national, died of his injury in hospital a week later. “I visited him every day and prayed so hard and all the time that he would survive,” says Mr Sharifi. “No one visited him. I never saw or met any of his family and friends.”

After the man’s death, Mr Sharifi was arrested. He was jailed for two months and ordered to pay Dh200,000 in blood money to the victim’s family.

“I feel guilty that a man died at my hands but I don’t know what I did wrong,” says Mr Sharifi. “I wasn’t on drugs, I wasn’t speeding, I didn’t cross a red light. I didn’t break any laws but it’s my fate I guess. I am responsible for another man’s death. I took him away from his family – his children if he has any kids or a wife.”

Mr Sharifi was released two months later but his passport was detained by the authorities.

If the late Indian’s family asks for blood money, he will have to return to prison until he pays the amount.

Presently, Mr Sharifi is unemployed and his father is retired.

“On the day of the accident, I had just been offered a job and I felt like I was on top of the world. I contacted them after I was released and they said they can’t hire me unless I give them my original passport,” he says.

Mr Sharifi says he is unable to pay blood money, but he needs his passport.

“I’ve looked everywhere and asked everyone but no one seems to know him [the deceased],” he says.

“My brother said that he will go to India and ask around. Maybe someone will recognise him, but we are praying that they will not ask for blood money or maybe discount it so that I’m not sent back to jail.”

Hisham Al Zahrani, at Dar Al Ber Society, is asking the public to help Mr Sharifi raise the funds for the blood money. “What happened to Amin could have happened to any one of us,” he says.

“He has a bright future ahead of him and we do hope that readers can help him have this life by paying off the blood money.”